Privacy Rights are Civil Rights

Protecting privacy is especially important for marginalized communities, who are disproportionately harmed by the exploitation of personal information enabled by inadequate privacy protections. Online discrimination through commercial data practices is a persistent problem, and it is vital that we treat individual privacy not as a personal luxury, but as a civil right. To create effective privacy legislation, policymakers must ensure that companies’ data practices don’t violate individuals’ civil rights. Privacy rights are civil rights, but our civil rights protections have not caught up to the digital economy. Though we have a number of federal civil rights statutes that can protect individuals belonging to certain protected classes from unjust treatment by traditional institutions, these laws don’t sufficiently protect against the novel forms of discrimination flourishing in the digital realm. As the fight for civil rights grapples with the threats posed by data and technology, these developments are making it more challenging to enforce civil rights laws. Broader policy changes are needed to resolve the ambiguities around applying civil rights laws to these twenty-first century means of discrimination. Otherwise, individuals, especially members of marginalized communities, will continue to face discrimination online.

[Becky Chao is a policy analyst at New America’s Open Technology Institute, where she works to promote equitable access to a fair and open internet ecosystem]